My trip from amateur to proficient forex trader

Hallo and welcome to my journal about me going from newbie to proficient trader.

A short story about me
I’m a student and I lives in Stockholm, Sweden. I have always wanted to become an entrepreneur and I was on a good way to become one. Before the summer I was preparing to start a houseboat company and the first step was to build a prototype but unfortunate I didn’t get financing. So new I have a full summer to do anything I want, so I decided that I will become a forex trader. So follow me on this exacting journey!

my goal
My goal is not to earn one million dollar as fast as possible! My goal is to have a daily income of $200 per day. I read a book^1 recently that change my why I thing about money and the “rich” why of living. This book really showed how cheap it is to live a good life of you focus on daily cash flow instead for a big sum later in life. I believe that this idea is possible to accomplish specially in the forex world.


Happy trading
@materyb
 

I am going to treat forex as business and nothing else. I found the forex community last winter and I have read about it ever since and learn what forex is. I do know the basic of forex, but it time to get deeper into this fantastical world of candlesticks and fibonacci numbers. But before I start to trade I need to create a trading-plan.

Trading
I know… I know…. It takes year of experience to become a good forex trader but I believe that I have a good chance to do it in a shorter time frame. I have a good experience from my poker career and I really understand the important of a good MM, but my greatest advances I believe, is that I love to learn new think. I don’t watch TV I instead prefer a good nonfiction book or TED

I will trade the EUR/USD pair and my starting capital is $470. When I see a constant profit I will invest more but for now this sum is good because I will not be happy if I lose it, but it will not affect my life. I will trade at the London - New York overlap because it the most livid period. I will focus to become a scalper and I found that extreme scalping(5-10sec chart) is a unexplored area and can be a very profitable so I will try to focus my attention there.

My schedule (GMT 1+ Sweden)

12.30 – 13.30 start of day
this is the preparation time for the day. At least for now I will look at the “Daily Forex Fundamentals” and “Daily Chart Art” what will happen today. This gives a good overall look at the market, and then I will go deeper and analyze the market myself. Try to get two or more idea what can happen and make a plan for every idea towards trying to get as much pips as possible in the end of the day.

13.30 – 14.00 lunch and relaxing time
Time for lunch and try to get myself in focus for a very profitable day

14.00 – 18.00 War time
Time to go to war!

18.00 – 19.00 reflecting time
this hour I going to reflect over my day and my trading. Also going to post a update about my progress.

My first step is to get an idea what a good forex trader is and make a plan to becoming good. I Summarizing the “market wizards” by Zhipeng Yan. This book is a collation of interviews with top traders in the world. I believe that it only worth spending time on reading and listening to the best and no speculators. My next post will be my summary

Happy trading
@materyb

First I need to say that I think at anyone can become anything of they follow the simple step. Find the people that are best in your area or field. Study what they do and do the things they do. And repeat! So before I go into forex I need to understand what makes a good forex trader tick!

Money management
As a read the “Market wizards” I can see that every trader have in comment that they have a belief that the most important part of trading is the MM. next to all say, risk little, cut losses and ride winners. So let start to make a good MM system. I do love this part so I have already thought about how to make a good system.

A very impotent aspect of every MM is that it needs to be simple. I also think that it needs to have a good compound effect and that why I chose the Oanda as my broker. They use units instead of lots which make it more simple and better than using lots.

Difference between lots and units
Let’s say that you start with 100,000. Every trading day you have 1% profit and you trade 200days. If you use lots you will start trading with 1 lot in 100 day. After 100 days you have double your money and you can use 2 lots. At the last day you will have 300,000 or 200% more.

We use exactly the same situation with units. You have 100,000 and you win 1% every day in 200days. After day one you have 101,000 at day 2 you have 102,010 etc. at the last day you will have 731,601 that’s 632% more!

My MM
My MM is very basic; I will risk maximum 0.5% per trade. I will decrease my trading risk when it going poorly to minimums the risk and I will only trade of the R/R is more than 5.

I have 100 dollar, this is my highest balance ever. Now I lose 10% so I decrease my trading risk with half or 0.25% and for every 10% more (90%, 80% ,70% etc.) I decrease risk with half. I think this is a good way because it statistic highly improbable to lose all my money.
From 100% to 90% I need to have a lose streak of 21. From 100% to 80% I need to have a losing streak of 68 and for 70% I need to have a losing streak of 175!

To make it even harder for me to lose money I will limit myself to maximum of 6 loses per day and after 3 loses I need to step aside and put a little time between my lose and my next trade.

Next post will be about successful traders personality and how I going to adjust myself to have a more successful personality

Happy trading
@materyb

hello materyb,
Sweden looks like a very nice place to live in.
it's great that u got involved in this business early.

which book are u referring to?
why $200 per day? do u need $200 for your daily needs/expenses (is it that expensive to live in Sweden; in comparison, with $200, in the Philippines, it is enough budget [food expense] for about a few weeks/1 month)?

Good luck in your journey!

Hallo supremeChaos,
It a very beautiful place to live in but the people are horrible or you can say as all tourist to, Swedish people are very cold I I think at an age of 18 it is a good start to get into the business.

I am referring to “The 4-Hour Workweek” by Timothy Ferriss, very good book to read. I can promise that it will change same fundamentals ideas anyone have about retirement.

For $200 here in Sweden I can hire a nice apartment in the most expensive area and live pretty good life, but I Thailand or any other cheap country I can live like a king!

Happy trading
@materyb

Sorry to disturb your daydream. Buddy ... but it is time for a reality check.
200 $ a day will get you nowhere is Sweden and ... is that before or after tax ?

My friend, I live in Sweden and I have done it past 12 years. I do know how much things cost up here and $200 is 26 754kr after taxes. For one person spending all money on consumption…. You can live a good life with that cash flow.

But I don’t dream about Sweden, I do not hate this place but I really don’t like it here.

Happy trading
@materyb

It midnight and I am doing same research and I have found 4 books I will focus all my attention on.

The first is “Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk” I think this will give excellent idea about making a good MM.

Next book is “Trading in the Zone” wish looks like all good traders read.

“Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar” looks promising!

And last book “Fibonacci Analysis”

I think I get it all now, Risk – Psychology – price action – Fibonacci, maybe missing “volume spread analysis“ but there are no books about it going to sleep now, maybe will find it tomorrow

Happy trading
@materyb

Since I'm a Dane myself I know something about taxes
There is something in your calculations that doesn't really add up. Lets say you have 21 trading days per month ... that would be $4200. Of course you can make a living from that but it is nothing spectacular - but then again we all have different needs. What is the tax in Sweden these days - I assume that you intend to pay your taxes
They might let you get away with paying "only" 35% - that means you must make something like 6500 $/month.

You mentioned that your starting capital was $470 usd. I'm not trying to kill your dream but you need to be realistic .... I'm actually working on something similar here myself only difference is that I have a good, stable income that can pay for my mistakes + I am trading some larger accounts.

hallo fido, because this dream is long away I haven’t really thought about that we only have 21 trading days. But something I know is the Swedish tax system. It’s very nice system; very capital friendly because you only pay the “Kapitalvinstskatt” and no matter how much you earn you will only pay 30% and no more.

My starting capital is $470 and I will add more when I see a constant profit =D

Happy trading
@materyb

Hallo, new day and even more opportunities to learning forex. For you that wonder when I will start to trade; I will start next week. This week I will prepare for the big day by making a system and learn what a good trader is and how I can become one. This is as much as a dairy to me as an insight into how I going to approach the forex world. Probably not very interesting now, but if I succeed against all odds this, I hope, will maybe help other beginners in the future!

There are massive amount of information on the net and here at Forex factory. Fibonacci, moving average, trend lines and a gigantic amount of all sorts of indicators; that you can use to earn money. I believe that simple is beautiful and complex is ugly. Instead of trying to learn everything I will focus on three things that work and become expert on these things.

The three kings:

Fibonacci – By knowing this part I will get a good big picture of the market and know what its intends to do.

Candlesticks pattern and signals – What happening here and now and it will give me good idea what the market will do in the short time and combined with Fibonacci it can give a good clue which way the price will probably take.

Volume Spread Analysis – this will give me the power to know what will happen before it happen.

The idea = an overall picture > here and now > before here and now = happy trader

Happy trading
@materyb

I am into the first chapter of this trading classic “trading in the zone” by mark douglas. In his book he explained the idea he call “reality gap” or “what should be” and “what is”. He states that a technical analysis is far superior then a purely fundamental approach. You should focus on what the market is doing now in relation to what it has done in the past, instead of focusing on what the market should be doing based on logic and reason.

“In other words, technical analysis turns the market into an endless stream of opportunities to enrich oneself.”

But the problem is he expresses is that there exist a huge gap between what you understand about the market, and your ability to transform that knowledge into consistent profits. Here he introduce a new idea that he call “psychological gap” and he explains: “There's a big difference between predicting that something will happen in the market (and thinking about all the money you could have made) and the reality of actually getting into and out of trades.”
Fear it the number one case why many traders fail. “Admitting we are wrong and losing money to boot can be extremely painful, and certainly something to avoid.” The question is how do I remain disciplined, focused, and confident in the face of constant uncertainty?

Learning to accept the risk factor is a trading skill: the most important skill I can learn. The best traders aren’t afraid, especially of the four primary trading fears: being wrong, losing money, missing out, and leaving money on the table. Problem with fear is that it causes us to freeze or run. Mentally, it causes us to narrow our focus of attention to the object of our fears. It makes us lose out on other possibilities and biologically make us stupid for the moment (the heart will pump blood to the muscles and not to the brain).

“hard, cold reality of trading is that every trade has an uncertain outcome. Unless you learn to completely accept the possibility of an uncertain outcome, you will try either consciously or unconsciously to avoid any possibility you define as painful. In the process, you will subject yourself to any number of self-generated, costly errors.” I will need to learn how to redefine my trading in such a way that I truly accept the risk, and I will no longer be afraid.

And that what I got from this first chapter of the book. This book is very easy read and fun to read and now I will continue into chapter two.

Happy trading
@materyb

Chapter two really get me thinking! Forex is place with unlimited possibilities and unlimited freedom to creative expression. A place without any roles and you can in principle do anything you want. This freedom can cause both financial and psychological damage of you doesn’t make up rules to defend yourself against them. The big problem the author expresses is that we people in our society deny each other the possibility to express ourselves. Maybe you as a parent have a good reason to not let your child play with paint in your living room but you do suppress the child the ability and it can create a vacuum in there little head, that accumulates and it can manifesting in a number of addictive and compulsive behavior patterns later in life.

In a lawless place there anything can happened you can’t avoid accepting the reality that, no matter how good a trade looks, it could lose. “Unless you have the appropriate mental structure to end a trade in a manner that is always in your best interest, you can become a passive loser. This means that, once you're in a losing trade, you don't have to do anything to keep on losing. You don't even have to watch. You can just ignore the situation, and the market will take everything you own—and more.”

“The accumulation of these negative feelings acts as a force inside our mental environment causing us to resist anything that denies us the freedom to do and be whatever we want, when we want. In other words, the very reason we are attracted to trading in the first place—the unlimited freedom of creative expression—is the same reason we feel a natural resistance to creating the kinds of rules and boundaries that can appropriately guide our behavior.”

You need to take the responsibility that you are completely responsible for your action! It not your broker or your friends fault that you lost your trade. In the end it’s your fault and your responsibility. Forex is a place where it’s truly every man for himself. The market does not care about you or any one and you can’t dement that the market do anything for you. Instead of trying to control our surroundings so they conform to our idea of the way things should be, we need to learn to control ourselves.

"Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility . . . . In the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have is the ability to take on responsibility."
— Michael Korda

Happy trading
@materyb

Ohh this is a long and painful chapter =P but lets begin! Chapter three is about explaining what responsibility really means and trying to get to the core what a bad trader does wrong. This chapter really shows a phenomenon that I see very often. Many traders begins there career by learning how the market works and not learn how to think like a trader. Mark Douglas really is trying to say that you really don’t need lots of skills; you just need a genuine winning attitude.

A good trader should operate from the belief that there’s no possible way to avoid a loss, it the natural consequence of trading. He need also completely accept the risk, meaning that he has considered and accounted for all of what would otherwise be unacceptable possibilities in the market’s behavior, both financially and emotionally.

What makes a bad trader become a successful trader is often a fundamental shift in attitude that accounts for their success. Not same brilliant realization about the market, as most people erroneously assume. The typical trader wants the market to fulfill his expectations, his hopes, and dreams. He does not take responsibility and when he loses he blames the market and not himself. Any degree of blaming means you have not accepted the reality that the market owes you nothing, regardless of what you want or how much effort you put into your trading.

Taking responsibility means acknowledging and accepting, at the deepest part of your identity, that YOU – not the market – are completely responsible for you success or failure as a trader. The market’s purpose is to separate you from your money; but in the process of doing so, it also provides you with an endless stream of opportunities for you to take money from it.

Understanding the markets will give you the edge you need to create some winning trades, but your edge won’t make you a consistent winner of you don’t have a winning attitude. If you stop fighting the market, which in effect means you stop fighting yourself, you’ll be amazed at how quickly you will recognize exactly what you need to learn, and how quickly you will learn it. Taking responsibility is the cornerstone of a winning attitude.

Happy trading
@materyb

As the last chapter end, the next beings. My words of wisdom =P

Let begin with seeing what separates a good trader from a bad. The think that separates the best traders from everyone else is not what they do or when they do it, but rather how they think about what they do and how they’re thinking when they do it. If my goal is to trade like a professional and be a consistent winner, then I must start from the premise that the solutions are in my mind and not in the market. Most traders erroneously assume that because they are engaged in the inherently risky activity of putting on and taking off trades, they are also accepting that risk. This assumption couldn’t be further from the truth! Accepting the risk means accepting the consequences of your trades without emotional discomfort or fear. This means that I must learn how to think about trading and my relationship with the markets in such a way that the possibility of being wrong, losing, missing out, or leaving money on the table doesn’t cause me mental defense mechanisms to kick in and take me out of the opportunity flow.

“the threat of pain generates fear, and fear is the source of 95% of the errors you are likely to make”

Most traders assume the best traders, like themselves, are also afraid for being wrong, losing, missing out, and leaving money on the table. They assume that the best traders somehow neutralize their fears with an inordinate amount of courage, nerves of steel and self-control. Where professional traders really separate themselves from the crowd is in there state of mind. When I accept the risk the way the pros do, I won’t perceive anything that the market can do as threatening. If nothing is threatening, there’s nothing to fear. If I am not afraid, I don’t need courage. If I am not stressed, why would I need nerves of steel? And if I am not afraid of my potential to get reckless, because I have the appropriate monitoring mechanisms in place, then I have no need to self-control.

The irony is that trading can be as much fun and as effortless, but experiencing these qualities consistently is a function of my perspective, my beliefs , my attitudes, or my mindset. If I depend on outside conditions and circumstances to make me happy (so that I always are enjoying myself), then it is extremely unlikely that I will experience happiness on a consistent basis. My state of mind should not be the result of an external shift in conditions, instead a result of an internal shift in my attitude.

Happy trading
@materyb

Very abstract chapter this was! Not much information about trading instead a explaining of how the mind and association works. I will not get into the philosophy but I love the scenario in the end of this chapter.

Let's set up a scenario, where your last two or three trades were losers. You are watching the market, and the variables you use to indicate that an opportunity exists are now present. Instead of immediately executing the trade, you hesitate. The trade feels very risky, so risky, in fact, that you start questioning whether this is "really" a signal. As a result, you start gathering information to support why this trade probably won't work. The market is moving. You don’t want to miss out, but you don’t want to get whipsawed either. In the end, you do nothing, because you are paralyzed by the conflict. You justify your state of immobility by telling yourself that it’s just too risky to chase the market, while you agonize over every tic the market moves in the direction of what would have been a nice winning trade.

If I change the scenario so that your last two or three trades were winners instead of losers, would you have perceived the signal any differently? Would you have perceived it more as an opportunity to win than you did in the first scenario? If you were coming off three winners in a row, would you have hesitated to put that trade on? Very unlikely!

As a result, in the first scenario, if you were coming off two or three losing trades, the next signal the market gives you that an opportunity was present will feel overly risky. Your mind is automatically and unconsciously linking the “now moment” with your most recent trading experiences. The link taps you into the pain of losing, creating a fearful state of mind and causing you to perceive the information you’re exposed to in that moment form a negative perspective. In the second scenario, the same process causes you to perceive the situation from an overly positive perspective, because you are coming off three winners in a row.

One of your basic objectives as a trader is to perceive the opportunities available, not the threat of pain. To learn how to stay focused on the opportunities, you need to know and understand in no uncertain terms the source of the threat. It’s not the market.

Happy trading
@materyb

Let’s summarize chapter six!

If there is such a thing as a secret to the nature of trading, this is it: At the very core of one's ability 1) to trade without fear or overconfidence, 2) perceive what the market is offering from its perspective, 3) stay completely focused in the "now moment opportunity flow," and 4) spontaneously enter the "zone," it is a strong virtually unshakeable belief in an uncertain outcome with an edge in your favor. The best traders have evolved to the point where they believe, without a shred of doubt or internal conflict, that "anything can happen."

You’ve built a mental framework that allows you to recognize a set of variables in the markets behavior that indicates when an opportunity to buy or sell is present. This is your edge and something you know. However, what you don't know is exactly how the pattern your variables identify will unfold. With the perspective of making yourself available, you know that your edge places the odds of success in your favor, but, at the same time, you completely accept the fact that you don't know the outcome of any particular trade. By making yourself available, you consciously open yourself up to find out what will happen next; instead of giving way to an automatic mental process that causes you to think you already know. Adopting this perspective leaves your mind free of internal resistance that can prevent you from perceiving whatever opportunity the market is making available from its perspective (its truth).

The first step on the road toward getting your mind and the market in sync is to understand and completely accept the psychological realities of trading. This step is where most of the frustrations, disappointments, and mysteriousness associated with trading begin. Very few people who decide to trade ever take the time or expend the effort to think about what it means to be a trader. Most people who go into trading think that being a trader is synonymous with being a good market analyst. As I have mentioned, this couldn't be further from the truth. Good market analysis can certainly contribute to and play a supporting role in one's success, but it doesn't deserve the attention and importance most traders mistakenly attach to it.

Operating effectively in an environment that has qualities, traits, or characteristics that are different from what we're used to requires making some adjustments or changes in the way we normally think about things. The problem is that traders frequently ignore the fact that they may have to adapt in order to become consistently successful traders. There are two reasons for this. The first is that you need absolutely no skill of any kind to put on a winning trade. For most traders it usually takes years of pain and suffering before they figure out or finally admit to themselves that there's more to being consistent than the ability to pick an occasional winner. The second reason is that you don't have to travel anywhere to trade. All you need is access to a computer or a phone. You don't even have to roll out of bed in the morning. Even traders who normally trade from an office don't have to be in the office to put on or take off their trades. Because we can access and interact with the market from personal environments that we are intimately familiar with, it seems as if trading won't require any special adaptations in the way we think.

Only the best traders cut their losses without reservation or hesitation when the market tells them the trade isn't working. And only the best traders have an organized, systematic, money-management regimen for taking profits when the market goes in the direction of their trade. Not predefining your risk, not cutting your losses, or not systematically taking profits are three of the most common—and usually the most costly—trading errors you can make. Only the best traders have eliminated these errors from their trading. If a recognizable pattern is present, that pattern may repeat itself, giving us an indication of where the market is headed. This is our edge, something we know. But there's also much that we don't know, and will never know unless we learn how to read minds. For instance, do we know how many traders may be sitting on the sidelines and about to enter the market? Do we know how many of them want to buy and how many want to sell, or how many shares they are willing to buy or sell Etc.?

The best traders don't try to hide from these unknown variables by pretending they don't exist, nor do they try to intellectualize or rationalize them away through market analysis. Quite the contrary, the best traders take these variables into account, factoring them into every component of their trading regimes. For the typical trader, just the opposite is true. He trades from the perspective that what he can't see, hear, or feel must not exist.

The most effective and functional trading belief that I can acquire is "anything can happen." Aside from the fact that it is the truth, it will act as a solid foundation for building every other belief and attitude that I need to be a successful trader.

Happy trading
@materyb

This chapter is about probability and how it effect trading.

Casinos make consistent profits day after day and year after year, facilitating an event that has a purely random outcome. At the same time, most traders believe that the outcome of the market’s behavior is not random, yet can’t seem to produce consistent profits. What casino owners, experienced gamblers, and the best traders understand that the typical trader finds difficult to grasp is: even that probable outcomes can produce consistent results, if you can get the odds in your favor and there is a large enough sample size. The best traders treat trading like a numbers game.

The fact is, the outcome of every trade that anyone decides to make is affected by the subsequent behavior of other traders in the market, making the outcome of all trades uncertain.

The best traders have learned to think in probabilities, there is no dilemma. Predefining the risk doesn’t pose a problem for these traders because they don’t trade from a right or wrong perspective. They have learned that trading doesn’t have anything to do with being right or wrong on any individual trade. If you believe the outcome is random, then you naturally expect a random outcome. So when we believe in a random outcome, there is an implied acceptance that we don’t know what that outcome will be. When we accept in advance of an event that we don’t know it will turn out, that acceptance has the effect of keeping our expectations neutral and open-ended. If each moment in the market is unique, and anything is possible, then any expectation that does not reflect these boundary-less characteristics is unrealistic.

Expectations come from what we know. This makes sense, because we can’t expect something that we have no knowledge or awareness of. Because our expectations come from what we know, when we decide or believe that we know something, we naturally expect to be right. At that point, we’re no longer in a neutral or open state of mind. If we’re going feel great if the market does what we expect it to do, or feel horrible if it doesn’t, then we’re not exactly neutral or open-minded. Quite the contrary, the force of the belief behind the expectation will cause us to perceive market information in a way that confirms what we expect; and our pain-avoidance mechanisms will shield us from information that doesn’t confirm what we expect.

We need to be rigid in our rules so that we gain a sense of self-trust that can, and will always, protect us in an environment that has few boundaries. We need to be flexible in our expectations so we can perceive, with the greatest degree of clarity and objectivity, what the market is communicating to us from its perspective. To eliminate the emotional risk of trading, you have to neutralize your expectations about what the market will or will not do at any given moment or in any given situation.

1.Anything can happen.
2.You don’t need to know what is going to happen next in order to make money.
3.There is a random distribution between wins and losses for ant given set of variables that define an edge.
4.An edge is nothing more than an indication of a higher probability of one thing happening over another.
5.Every moment in the market is unique.

The best traders are in the “now moment” because there’s no stress. There’s no stress because there’s nothing at risk other than the amount of money they are willing to spend on a trade. They are not trying to be right or trying to avoid being wrong; neither are they trying to prove anything. If and when the market tells them that their edges aren’t working or that it’s time to take profits, their minds do nothing to block this information. They completely accept what the market is offering them, and they wait for the next edge.

happy trading
@materyb

At the most fundamental level, the market is simply a series of up and down tics that form patterns. Technical analysis defines these patterns as edges. Any particular pattern defined as an edge is simply an indication that there is a higher probability that the market will move in one direction over the other. The reality is each pattern is a unique occurrence, so the outcome of each pattern is random relative to one another.

So what prevents us from perceiving each “now moment” as an opportunity to do something for ourselves or to act appropriately even when we do? Our fears! What is the source of our fears? We know it’s not the market, because from the market’s perspective, the up and down tics and the patterns they create are neither positively nor negatively charged.

As traders, we can’t afford to indulge ourselves in any form of “I know what to expect from the market.” We can “know” exactly what an edge looks, sounds, or feels like, and we can “know” exactly how much we need to risk to find out if that edge is going to work. We can ”know” that we have a specific plan as to how we are going to take profits of a trade works. BUT THAT’S IT!

Putting on a winning trade or even a series of winning trades requires absolutely on skill! Creating consistent results and being able to keep what we’ve created does require skill. Consistency is the result of a carefree, objective state of mind, where we are making ourselves available to perceive and act upon whatever the market is offering us in any given “now moment”. Care free means confident, but not euphoric. When you are in a carefree state of mind, you won’t feel any fear, hesitation, or compulsion to do anything, because you’ve effectively eliminated the potential to define and interpret market information as threatening. You have accepted the risk completely and you are at peace with any outcome.

Anything can happen in any given moment in the market and every moment in the market is unique. Trading is a numbers game and concepts like right and wrong or win and lose have no significance. An edge is nothing more than an indication of a higher probability of one thing happening over another and you only need to know that you have an edge and with sufficient sample size you will win the game.

Hallo now I have read the whole “Trading in the zone” and I am very, very happy that I have read it now, before I start trading. Because I never have traded for real I think I it make it very easy for me to adapt to the five fundamental rules.

1.Anything can happen.
2.You don’t need to know what is going to happen next in order to make money.
3.There is a random distribution between wins and losses for any given set of variables that define an edge.
4.An edge is nothing more than indication of a higher probability of one thing happening over another.
5.Every moment in the market is unique.

This is what it all about, 149 pages of explanation to what this rules mean and understanding how to implant them in your trading.
I made an interpretation to make it more personal and make it stick:

Anything can happen in any given moment in the market and every moment in the market is unique. Trading is a numbers game and concepts like right and wrong or win and lose have no significance. An edge is nothing more than an indication of a higher probability of one thing happening over another and you only need to know that you have an edge and with sufficient sample size and you will win the game.

This sentence I will read very time before I start to trade. I do believe I am very lucky that I started on the right side of the stick, by learning how the best traders think and not start by learning how to market works. Now is time to look at “Burn Notice” but after I will start to make my own trading system!